3. Deadwood - Captain Joe Turner loses an eye

However, after taunting muscleman Dan Dority into a street fight, it doesn't quite go to plan for him. After seemingly winning the brawl, Dority manages to TEAR OUT HIS LEFT EYE before beating him to death. Ah, the old west.

4. Ren and Stimpy - all of it

Tom and Jerry were violent, Itchy and Scratchy are insane, even Peter Griffin and the giant chicken are tough, but these dudes take the biscuit in the cartoon blood and guts game.

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We've listed various moments which proved the show was very much not for children, but the above gif where Ren plucks bloody nerve endings out of his toothless mouth wins the prize.

5. Spooks - Lisa Faulkner meets a deep fat fryer

This was a true WTF moment. Just its second episode, and lovely Lisa Faulker's apparent main character Helen was already killed off.

And in a brutal fashion. Kidnapped by a gang and tortured for information, it was bad enough when Helen's hand was burned in a deep fat fryer, but then her face was shockingly placed inside too before being shot. Would the BBC get away with such a scene today?

6. Hannibal - A human collage

Bryan Fuller's horror show somehow made such horrific gore strangely pretty. But this one made us throw up inside our mouths.

Here, recovered drug addict Roland Umber wakes up to discover that his naked body has been sewn into a massive human mural, like a version of the Human Centipede that would be taken in by Tate Modern.

The scene is horrific enough, but seeing Roland forcibly rip off his skin from a corpse is a true nightmare.

7. The Sopranos - Tony's curb stomp

When Tony learns what has happened, he proceeds to beat the crap out of him with his pistol, before taking him outside and knocking out his teeth on the side of the road, American History X style.

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8. Breaking Bad - Gus gets blown up

Not necessarily violent compared to other entries on this list, but shocking all the same.

Drug kingpin Gus Fring became Walter White's biggest enemy and rival, and so found an opportunity to take him out in the most explosive way possible.

Walter's bomb explodes just as Gus attempts to escape, blowing off half his face. The sight of Gus straightening his tie while half his face falls apart is one of those moments you can't shake off in a hurry.

9. Six Feet Under - a man gets killed by an elevator

This felt like an intro to a Final Destination movie rather than Six Feet Under. Even for a show that dealt with death every episode, this was truly shocking.

Poor Kenneth. He was just trying to rescue everyone in that lift. This made us take the stairs for at least two years afterwards.

10. True Blood - Russell kills a news anchor live on air

Supervillain Russell Edgington had enough of being nice to humans, and so decided to show up live on TV and rip out the local anchorman's spine, declaring: "We will eat you. After we eat your children." Jesus.

11. Oz - Beecher craps out his revenge

There may have been plenty of other more violent moments in this prison drama, but this is the one that sticks out in our memory the most.

New inmate Tobias Beecher wasn't prepared for life inside jail, and had first year was full of bullying and rape by Neo-Nazi Schillinger. By the end of the first season, he had enough of his... crap, but POOING on his face.

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